September 10, 2024

The Akahata Sunday edition on September 9 won the grand prize of the 67th JCJ Awards for its series of reports on the Liberal Democratic Party factions’ alleged falsification of accounting records and creation of off-the-book funds.

The Japan Congress of Journalists (JCJ) annually honors outstanding journalism in newspapers, broadcasting, and publishing.

It was the Akahata Sunday edition of November 6, 2022 issue that carried a special article on the unregistered fundraiser-incomes involving the five main LDP factions. It got a scoop on the fact that the names of major purchasers of fundraising-party tickets were not listed in the factions’ reports on political funds.

The Akahata Sunday edition’s special reporting team, following the publication of the scoop, expanded its investigation to include industry political organizations. It checked these bodies’ expenditures accounted for in their balance sheets and compared them with the LDP factions’ revenues registered in their political funds reports. As a result, the reporting team discovered that there were a number of discrepancies, and that all the five major LDP factions were found to have repeatedly made similar irregularities over the past several years.

The Political Funds Control Act requires that the names of fundraiser-ticket purchasers who bought more than 200,000 yen in tickets be listed in the balance sheet reports on political funds. Offenders are punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of up to one million yen.

A series of the special reports by the Akahata Sunday edition revealed that the creation of slush funds through political fundraising parties is a systematic method of falsifying the records prevalent within the LDP.

First, in November 2022, a criminal charge was filed against the Abe faction chief, Hosoda Hiroyuki, then speaker of the House of Representatives (deceased), with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of violating the Political Funds Control Act. Subsequently, members of other factions one after another were also accused. In response to the accusations, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s special investigation squad launched an investigation into the off-the-book money allegations in the fall of 2023.

A scoop published in the Akahata Sunday edition in November 2022 led to a big scandal that shook the LDP as a whole and eventually cornered Prime Minister Kishida Fumio to step down.

Past related articles:
> LDP’s fundraising scandal highlights need for total ban on political donations from corporations and interest groups [December 20, 2023]
> Koike: LDP should fully explain all its funding scandals before dissolving LDP factions [January 20, 2024]